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Is it too early to ask for hints?
If not, please can someone point me in the right direction for 5ac?
I think it might be a kind of digestif but "bleeps"?

The answer is a near synonym for "digestive", nothing to do with digestif. It's "bleep" as in what a "bleeper" does. So the answer will be a synonym for "digestive" which has the effect of changing the word "patrice" to one meaning "bleep". Hope that makes some sort of sense. It did to me when I wrote the clue.

Thank you Peter.
Perfectly clear, still can't solve it. El thicko, me
I have, however, done 27dn

Needed that hint peterm...that's the device Azed is normally using when I have one left that baffles me.

It's one of peterm's substitutions, Rosalind. The answer contains "as" and you replace part of Patrice with a single letter.

You guys are on the ball.

I don't really want any hints yet, but I have several "answers" that I would like confirmed (or otherwise). Do people think that a thread for this might be a possibility?
(Though it would be difficult for people to use it without seeing answers that they don't want, I suppose.)

(Just returned from phase one, picking)
You could ask Les, chris, or start a thread for each one you want to check so no-one need see it who didn't want to.
I can't get any further without some hints!

I found the niners section especially challenging. If I had known that certain clues wouldn't have the usual crossers I might have constructed them differently, but that's bilge, as AB would put it (water under the bridge). Most enjoyable nevertheless.

Thanks for the suggestion, rosalind - I'll give it a try!